


460

by Starhallow



Series: Bridgerton one-shots [2]
Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Colin is an idiot but I feel like that's canon at this point, F/M, it's not, no beta we die like ladies, no dialogue in chapter 1, this was supposed to be a oneshot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starhallow/pseuds/Starhallow
Summary: The number would appear near one's heart when one became of age. It would change, as numbers are prone to do, depending on the distance between the two destined for each other. When Colin gets his mark, he makes a habit to check the numbers on his skin every morning, only to find that they never change. They don't bother him. There is no reason why they would.Or the Polin fic from my prompt list that is still unfinished but I'm too impatient not to post, so two chapters it is.
Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington
Series: Bridgerton one-shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170656
Comments: 33
Kudos: 220





	460

**Author's Note:**

> Requested from the prompt list, inspired by a headcanon by the lovely Lunodia.
> 
> Here is the prompt list btw: [Prompt list](https://msstarhallow.tumblr.com/post/643309234388402176/prompt-list)

**Chapter 1: The Numbers In My Skin**

* * *

The number would appear near one's heart when one became of age. It would change, as numbers are prone to do, depending on the distance between the two destined for each other. The fates, however, always capricious and unpredictable seemed to favour a different unit of measurement for each destined pair.

Anthony had woken up the day of his eighteenth birthday and asked for their father so they could check the number together. Colin hadn't known which one it was, but Anthony and Father had both spent that morning in the study in Aubrey Hall drawing on maps and marking different towns and cities they could visit with that excuse. Then, their father had died, and Colin knew Anthony had stopped looking at his mark and had made it his mission to keep the numbers as high as he could.

Benedict had been a fool. He had gotten up from bed several times during the night and even made Colin confirm that they had yet to appear. When the imprint in his skin finally showed, he spent several hours walking about the house trying to figure out the unit of measurement. Then again, Benedict had always been a romantic, and it would have been idiotic to think that he would take to the search of his soulmate with any less fervour and passion than he had. He never did figure out the unit and he had been melancholic for a week straight.

It had been different for Colin. He had almost forgotten about the entire thing until his mother had commented on it during breakfast on his eighteenth birthday. It was probably the one and only time he had left food at the table and rushed to do something else. He had taken his shirt off on his way to his mirror and thrown it somewhere in his room. He checked the right side of his chest in a foolish moment of stupor, before turning and checking his left side. There, in the space between his fourth and fifth ribs, right on his left pectoral muscle, was a little number: 460. Was it paces? Feet? Miles? It was surely one of the bigger units of measurement, there was no way his soulmate lived just a few streets away. Miles, Colin hoped. Probably leagues, he admitted dejectedly.

Colin had checked his chest every single day since he became of age. The number never changed, at least not when he was at home. Colin was, however, always had been, a bit of a bird-brain and would forget about his figures if he were not following the somewhat strict routine of Bridgerton house. Get up, check the numbers in the mirror that was to the side of his dresser, dress, have breakfast, start the day. Anywhere else, anywhere with a succession of events that could be slightly different, and Colin's brain would let the changing digits slip from memory.

When he left for university and he discovered that the small mirror in his room was firmly nailed to the wall, Colin gave up on climbing on his furniture only after a couple of tries. He would never admit it, but he had secretly been terrified of seeing the number change. If it suddenly became ridiculously larger, it would mean that his soulmate was closer than was ready to have her be. And if they were? Well, then Colin would be in for a whole world of trouble. His soulmate could be an elderly woman close to their deathbed surrounded by children and grandchildren. Even worse, what if it was a girl close to his age, possibly even out in society. Colin shuddered at the thought of it, at the idea of having his life written for him before he had even had a chance to live it.

At the same time, seeing the number unchanged would have been as bad. The fact that moving miles away from his home (even by a few) wouldn't change the number would mean a distance too great for them to overcome.

Colin never talked about his numbers, he took after Anthony in that regard. Daphne, on the other hand, couldn't shut up about hers when they showed. Always babbling about how far away her soulmate seemed to be, constantly imagining a thousand and one adventures that were keeping them apart. All talk of Daphne's mate quieted after her second season, however, when it was slowly but painfully becoming clear that none of the four eldest Bridgertons were having any luck finding the other half of their souls.

The digits in Colin's chest every morning when he woke up in his own bed, however, never changed: 460.

When Colin met Marina Thompson he was sure that he was utterly and irrevocably in love. He had somehow let his mother bully him into dancing with a Featherington again, and he had chosen Penelope without thinking about it twice. Then, he saw her. Marina and him had been introduced shortly after that dance, and he had called on her the following day, like almost half of the bachelors on the _ton_. There had been a little sting in the left side of his chest while he sat listening to a sonnet that Colin was sure must be to poetry, what the Smythe-Smithe musicales were to music. He rubbed the spot in his chest and caught Penelope's eye. She was sitting further to the corner, and he thought she looked somehow blue, even as she played with a puppy that had been gifted to her cousin. He had made a point to talk to her for a bit. He did consider them friends, at least by proxy, and Penelope was too sweet for her to have any feeling other than happiness at every moment of the day.

In the following weeks, Colin ignored his routines and devoted his time to explore this new love he felt. If he were truthful with himself he would admit that the kept away from his mirror every morning. He was engaged before his family could recover from the whirlwind that had been Daphne's courtship. He avoided eldest brother's judging eyes, he evaded his mother's concerns, he overlooked Penelope's warnings and, for the love of all that was holy he learned to tune out the ever-present sting in his chest. It had been so recurrent in recent days that Colin had decided it was surely heartburn, but not even mint tea would ease it.

The burn became almost unbearable the night before he was to elope with Marina, the kind of stabbing pain that could make a man bend over himself. Colin lay curled in his bed for most of the night, unable to find a position that would lessen his aching chest, rubbing the spot on his thorax over and over again. The clock on his nightstand read four in the morning when he finally got up from bed and lit a candle so he could see around him. He took his shirt off and threw it on the bed before making his way to the mirror. He went to rub the blasted spot in his chest again, but his skin felt different under his fingers like it would if he had some kind of scar. He walked to the big mirror and took his hand away. The 460 on his heart looked red and angry, almost as if his soulmate were aware of his betrayal. Colin felt his eyes fill with tears and realised that he couldn't swallow his own saliva. It had been the first time he had faltered in his decision, made him wish that the 460 leagues (he was convinced that they were leagues) between him and his other half didn't exist.

Colin checked the red numbers between his ribs one last time before quietly walking down the stairs the following morning, hating his sullen mood on what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. Sleepless as he was, his mind didn't question why his mother was already up, or why she would push the newest Whistledown into his hands with such a sombre gesture. The words on display took the leftover fight he had in him. In the end, he just accepted the pain and walked back to his rooms.

* * *

He pushed away any thoughts of his mark and the numbers 4, 6 or 0. He made it his mission to avoid them, to avoid any thoughts of love and soulmates. He ignored the dull, but now almost constant, sting in his thorax until it slowly disappeared. He learned how to enjoy the sun once again, even if he had had to travel halfway around the world to do so.

He started a journal at some point, one of those afternoons when his mind had travelled back to Grosvenor Square and he could see his sister Eloise ferociously writing on hers. He had felt awkward writing to himself at first, so he had decided to write them as if they were letters instead. He could think of no one special enough to confess his deepest thoughts to. He subconsciously wrote the words “ _to you_ ” on the first page of his new leather journal, and immediately thought of the soulmate he was sure he would never meet. They were the only words that would inspire him to write whenever the thoughts would escape from his grasp before he could pen them, however.

He was already in Cyprus when the sting came back with vengeance early one morning, and despite his previous resolve, Colin walked to the mirror on the room he was renting and took his shirt off. The numbers in his chest weren't angry red this time, but they had turned somewhat coral around the black ink that had drawn them in his skin almost five years before. What had Colin aghast was not, however, the colour of his skin, but the change in figures on it. He had loved the 460 in his chest for as long as he had hated it, to now see how it had changed, to a number too big for him to ever fathom.

Colin looked at the seven figures that formed a neat row and fought the urge to pull his hair out. 3 816 800. His soulmate was almost four million somethings away. Four million. He had been closer to her in England than in the middle of Europe. She hadn't been leagues away like he had thought. She hadn't even been miles away. The only way for the number in his chest to be so great was for her to be much closer than he had ever imagined she could be. He sat in his bed for what felt like hours, trying to work out the maths, even though he had never been good at them.

As much as he liked to pretend otherwise, Colin was still nursing his heart, glueing his confidence back together, and as much as his soul urged him to go back and look for her, he decided to finish his tour the way he had planned. He would be back before the start of the season, anyway.

* * *

At six and twenty Colin was supposed to already be married, at least according to his mother. Father's and hers had been a true love match, one of those rare instances when the stars, and the planets and all the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and Mars aligned and two people that had been matched found each other. When shortly after she had been married Daphne had revealed that Simon and her numbers matched, mother had wept. Anthony had been a complete and utter mess for weeks after his own wedding, until one drunken night he had confessed to Colin that his figures matched Kate's. It was only after she had gotten into the accident that he had changed the terrified look in his eyes for the one full of love, the one he would have on his stupid face whenever he rubbed the middle of his chest.

Colin had tried to find his other half – his better half, as Anthony liked to call her – when he had arrived from Cyprus, but there where only so many times he could walk around the streets in Mayfair before he had deemed the task too great and abandoned it. He would never admit it, never in a million years would confess how fearful he was of having his heart broken again. His mark had ceased stinging, anyway. She might have given up and gotten married for all he knew.

Violet Bridgerton was relentless, however, and if her third son had no interest in finding his soulmate, she would do the next best thing and choose a wife for him. His dear mother, it seemed, had chosen Penelope Featherington. Not that he didn't like Penelope. She was his friend, one of the few constants in his life. Lovely and loyal, Pen was the kind of person that was too nice for her own good, too kind, too forgiving. Colin was painfully aware of that last quality, because unknowingly he was the one that took the most advantage of it.

He could blame his brothers, he would if he weren't so ashamed of himself, of the words that had just come out of his mouth. The stabbing pain in his heart started right between when he had declared that he would never marry Penelope Featherington and the almost inaudible “oh” she had uttered. To this day, Colin couldn't explain if the shock that had rendered him speechless had been due to the agony that was consuming him or the self-hatred and embarrassment that clouded his mind.

She had left as soon and as unexpectedly as she had arrived. Colin was torn between admiring her fortitude in the face of someone undeserving of her gentle heart as he was; and the sudden urge to beg forgiveness until he lost his voice. His skin was afire like it had never been before, the pressure in his chest made it hard to breathe and the lightest touch burned him to the bone. Colin ran, taking the stairs two at a time, and pulled on his jacket, vest and cravat as if they were a snake constricting and crushing his body. He tore his shirt in half looking for the source of the burning pain. The numbers in his chest shone bright scarlet, as if the devil himself had branded them into his skin with the hottest iron in hell.

What truly, absolutely, and completely horrified him, was not, howbeit, how the spot above his heart looked and felt like, but the fact that the numbers changed with a slow yet constant cadence until they reached the number he was so familiar with: 460.

It dawned on him then, they were paces. He had been 460 paces away from his soulmate for years and he had ever even thought it would be a possibility. 460 paces, which was barely the other side of Grosvenor Square.

Good Lord.

It was barely the other side of Grosvenor Square.

The Featherington house was on the other side of Grosvenor Square, but it couldn't be, could it?

No, it surely wasn't.

Was it not?

No.

No, it could not be.

There was no way his soulmate lived in the Featherington house and-

There was no way Penelope was the one destined to be his, was it?

He surely would have known, would have felt something if she were.

Hadn't he?

Colin covered his opened mouth with his hand and paced back and forth in his room. He always woke up before she did, so it made sense for his mark to remain unchanged whenever they were both at home. He had never checked when he had left for university, and very rarely looked at it when he went away after the entire Marina debacle.

He thought back at every time his chest had stung. The first time he remembered anything of the sort happening is that day in the Featherington sitting-room. It had been faint, there is a second and gone the next, but he remembered how Penelope had looked sad about something.

It had been off and on for a time during that entire season. Had she been so sad? It had never crossed his mind that Penelope could be having a rough time during that time. She had always been so lively every time he had seen her, so smiley and lovely. She had always had a funny story to tell him or a barb to share, he had never thought he could have been harming her when he had taken advantage of her good heart. He had always assumed, that if given the chance, Penelope would have been as lovely to the rest of the ton as she was whenever he was around. Looking back, he could recall the small burn he had felt every time he had flirted with Marina in public. How he had blamed indigestion for it.

Colin made his way to the bed and laid down. He had ignored Penelope's pleas after dinner the days before the elopement, had he not? He had seen the hurt in her eyes and still disregarded her concerns. The knot on his throat had barely let him eat, but he had never thought it only to be because of the scandal he was about to drown his family in. Never really considered there could be other reasons for it. Then the night arrived and somehow made everything worse. Yes, he had barely slept that night. The pain had begun abruptly so he had thought it to be nerves.

Pain. Did that mean he could feel it when he hurt her? Be it directly or indirectly? How could he face the world now that he knew, that what Penelope must have felt at the time ought to be much worse than the phantom pain he suffered.

He tossed around on the mattress and rubbed his face against the pillows. Lord, was he stupid. Every time his heart had twisted, it had been because he had hurt Penelope: the night before he left just after her father's passing, every time he had overlooked her, that same afternoon when he had broken all relationship they had built in the past.

The sudden realisation had brought a horrible weight to his chest, was there any way he could rebuild what he had wrecked?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!
> 
> Welcome to another one of my fics that was supposed to be shorter than it's actually going to be. It's my first actual Polin fic, so thanks for reading it and I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> Fun fact, the reason why Polin's mark is between their fourth and fifth ribs is because that is where we place the V4 electrode in an ECG, and V4 monitors the left ventricle, and the blood pumped from the left ventricle irrigated every cell of your body. It's incredibly corny, but I thought it was cute lol.
> 
> English isn't my first language, so apologies if something isn't written right, I am happy to change it if anyone lets me know :) 
> 
> Tumblr:
> 
> [@msstarhallow](http://msstarhallow.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Where I shitpost and rant and all that good stuff (I'm active again and I just love the Bridgerton community over there! It's also the most direct way to contact me (If you'd like to do that for some reason), so yeah)!  
> 
> 
> Comments and feedback are always appreciated!!  
>  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway!  
>  Lots of love!


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